Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300 freezes every hour or so.

[Silentnoise3]

Hi Andrew,

Just wondering if your phone is still behaving, I'm thinking of sending mine back under warranty as currently I have a White Galaxy S3 which is non-rooted with Vodafone running 4.1.2 - As of about a week or two ago it seems to have developed this bug where it just freezes. I already did a re-install and have slowly started adding apps but I can't seem to find a pattern it just seems random so I've now removed all apps again in the hope of resolving this.

It seems weird how this problem just came on as I've never had a problem with the phone before, I'm giving it one more try i think and then I'll send it back if it keeps on freezing. If anyone does find a solution to this annoying problem please let us ALL know!

Thanks

 

[l3ambin0]

UPDATE (01/28/13):

It seems that the problem could be the WiFi card or something related... This weekend, went out of home since friday and stop using WiFi, I didn't need to restart the phone on 2 days in a row.. But last night (Sunday) i came back home, and when i get connected to WiFi i had the same issues again! Need to restart the sgs3 every 15 minutes or less...

Maybe was a coincidence, but at least now i have a reference to look for.. I'll keep searching for a solution, and I'll keep you posted..

 

[Hassan Skaik]

I have the same problem, i wipe all data and install may roms custom and stock, but the same problem.
Any idea?

 

[johnnytwebb]

As I posted in the other similar thread;

I did absolutely nothing to the phone and the freezing issue has now disappeared for more than 24 hours now (knock on wood).

The other night it froze ? but I didn?t turn it off ? just let it be and plugged it in to charge. And voila ? the next day it was performing as if nothing happened.

To those thinking of sending it back ? I?d recommend waiting a bit and seeing if it sorts itself out.

 

[ivo89]

I had the exact same problems as described above. I've been to the Vodafone store and they downgraded it to android 4.1.1 (JRO03C.I9300XXDLIH). The problem is gone now for about 6 hours, instead of freezing every 15/30 minutes. Hope this helps for you all.

 

[betty_boop245]

Im having the same problems. My phone is 5 months old, and was fine before the 4.1.2 update. Since I updated about 2 weeks ago, it has gradually gone from just being slow and laggy, to freezing at least twice a day. I contacted Samsung, and they told me to do a full factory reset, which I did, but after 1 day the freezing started again. They've now told me I need to take it to a service centre, although I don't know what they'll be able to do if its a software bug, but I guess ive got no choice, as im not prepared to put up with it until they release an update to fix it!!

 

[richo1973]

Hi - exact same problems as other.
Got a S3 on O2 and not had any problems until yesterday when the phone started randomly freezing. No patterns of what I'm doing, can be doing anything, even when the phone is in sleep mode. Only options are to hold power button down or remove the battery. Over 48hrs this must of happened over 20 times. Frustrating isn't the word!!!!!
I've tried the following to no avail:-
* Removing recently installed apps
* Closing down all running tasks via holding down home button and clearing memory and closing down all apps
* Turning wifi completely off

From other posters I'm dubious about doing a factory reset as others have tried this and it hasn't worked. If anyone has any tips or had any success I'd be really grateful.
I'd agree this seems to have been the case since 4.1.2 which my phone recently received via OTA

 

[johnnytwebb]

Wait it out - I had the same problem and it seems to have solved itself.

 

[Silentnoise3]

- Vodafone UK Contract - White Galaxy S3

The problem does appear to be less often, so far I've resisted downgrading from 4.1.2, but I may go back to 4.1 or 4.1.1 soon as the problem hasn't completley disappeared and does appear to be totally random from what I can tell. I never had a problem before the upgrade so I'm thinking it must be some random bug regarding the software upgrade but as I can't find a pattern it could be anything. I've tried various things like removing all apps, total wipe and reinstall and also keeping wi-fi off and it still happened at various times.

I'm now using the phone as normal the it doesn't seem to be freezing as often as it was (at one point almost as soon as it had rebooted it would freeze) and it down to maybe once per day, but also once i charge it overnight, usually when i check my phone in the morning it has frozen and rebooted itself, I know this because I've got a simlock and it's always on that screen, could be a overheating problem? or heat sensor problem or the way the OS is detecting these?

 

[richo1973]

Thanks for the info and fingers crossed my similar issue starts to dissapear. Can you tell me out of interest how I would downgrade to 4.1.1?
Thanks

- Vodafone UK Contract - White Galaxy S3

The problem does appear to be less often, so far I've resisted downgrading from 4.1.2, but I may go back to 4.1 or 4.1.1 soon as the problem hasn't completley disappeared and does appear to be totally random from what I can tell. I never had a problem before the upgrade so I'm thinking it must be some random bug regarding the software upgrade but as I can't find a pattern it could be anything. I've tried various things like removing all apps, total wipe and reinstall and also keeping wi-fi off and it still happened at various times.

I'm now using the phone as normal the it doesn't seem to be freezing as often as it was (at one point almost as soon as it had rebooted it would freeze) and it down to maybe once per day, but also once i charge it overnight, usually when i check my phone in the morning it has frozen and rebooted itself, I know this because I've got a simlock and it's always on that screen, could be a overheating problem? or heat sensor problem or the way the OS is detecting these?

 

[Silentnoise3]

Hi Richo1973

I found the following guide on how to roll back your Galaxy S3, the website it links too has various different ROMS, so you just choose the one that matches your phone and network provider.

[How to] Flash/Rollback Galaxy S3 - Vodafone eForum

 

[ezman-leeds]

O2 have got an update out today, fingers crossed, my O2 gs3 just started doing this in the last week

 

[Silentnoise3]

Yeah Vodafone UK just got an update via Kies today also, just waiting for my phone to charge before updating. Will report back

 

[Sl0th]

check this thread people also experiencing this problem.. a couple of us it has just fixed itself magically like mine and then it may come back for abit then go :S

http://forums.androidcentral.com/sa...-freezing-every-few-minutes-unresponsive.html

 

[Silentnoise3]

Hi All,

Not good news I'm afraid, did the update last night and now my phone freezes pretty much everytime I reboot, I'm going to have to roll back now as at the moment the phone is pretty much a useless brick. It'll reboot sometimes and is OK but as soon as i go in to any application and try to do something it freezes! .... I'm rolling back to before 4.1.2 and if it's still happening then It'll have to go back to Samsung for repair.

 

[jakeinator21]

I have the same problem. Usually the phone would freeze after I initiated some action for an app. The screen would freeze on the app, and the hard buttons would be unresponsive. The notification bar would be active still, so i could pull it down, but once I let it go after pulling it down, it wouldn't go back up. I could push the power button and the screen would go black, but when I pushed it again, it would display exactly the same screen. I was on Wicked rom at the time, thought it might be a rom issue, but it wasn't that bad so I just let it continue. After a week or so it started to get really bad. One day it stared freezing almost every hour, so I decided to flash back to stock. After going back to stock and doing a full wipe, including a format of the sd card, it seemed to do fine, but trying to install a zip via cwm recovery, it froze again. Unexpected to see it happening in recovery, as I assumed it was a software issue. Phone was fine for two days without freezing while it was running. On the third day, today, it froze again in the exact same way. So that's where I'm at now. Thinking I'll get it replaced.

 

[richo1973]

Well after 4 days of getting this problem in anything I'm doing and having to reboot my phone 20+ times a day I've decided to factory reset. What I've done and intending to do is:-
* Factory reset
* Leave for upto 72hrs with minimal apps and see results
* If problem reoccurs roll back to 4.1.1 (currently on 4.1.2)
* If problem reoccurs have little choice but to take the phone back to the shop.

Similar to everyone else I had no problems at all with my phone and 4 days ago this started completely out of the blue with no new apps or changes made to my phone.
I'll post back with my results as I'm sure everyone else is finding this as frustrating as me...
Cheers....

 

[David Sutherland1]

Two things I've done which have helped considerably:

Turn off wi-fi power saving. I picked this tip up from another forum - can't recall where.

In the dialler, type *#0011#. You'll go into the service mode. Select wi-fi using the menu button and you should see a toggle to disable WPS mode. Change it to OFF.

This made my freezes and reboots go from several a day to one or two a day. It doesn't appear to have any negative impact on wi-fi performance or battery life. The reboots seem to occur most often when unlocking - maybe the wifi tries to reconnect and triggers a bug, and I'm guessing this keeps the connection alive longer.

I've subsequently installed a different kernel (siyah 1.8.9) , and that combined with the WPS thing has reduced my random freezes and/or reboots to about one every two days. I can almost live with that.

This update is seriously messed up for stability, but the features are compelling. I'm hoping Samsung get a fix out in the next few weeks or I'm going to roll back to an earlier version.

Hope these tips help someone else. I spent a lot of time searching for a fix, and this is as close as I got.

Cheers,
D.

 

[thelegendaryjay]

Hi all!

Unfortunately mine has started doing this too. I've pretty much eliminated the apps being an issue by not having any installed on stock XELLA. I've unrooted, flashed stock rom & factory reset, wiped the cache and factory reset from recovery. It was happening pretty much "randomly", or so it seemed.

I had a niggling feeling that it was WIFI being used / related from what I had done so far, I left the phone to run overnight with WIFI ON, but with out having logged into the Play store or Samsung account after a factory reset, no other apps installed - come to this morning where I found my phone sitting there, no lock ups, no freezes, I kept waking it up randomly to see if I could get it to lock up, nothing - running "fine".

Now it had run overnight, with no apparent lock ups and no lock ups this morning at all, it was now time to experiment... I logged into the Play store app and straight away, as soon as I tapped on the notification to say the stock apps (dropbox etc) needed updating it crashed. Straight away. IE putting load on the WIFI card/chip/drivers.

Now I'm tempted to take it back to Vodafone because my wife's S3 is running like a dream as is my mothers and sisters as far as I know, (they usually come running to me if they have technomeltdowns), no lock ups, no freezing - my cheeky wife blamed me for "rooting & mucking around with it", but if I take it back to them I'll get a refurb device and whose to say that one won't experience the same problems?

Could anyone else try a factory reset and at the initial setup options, just skip everything and let your phone run like that for a few hours, turn wifi on, leave it for a few more hours, hopefully you have no lock ups, if you have no more lock ups sign into the Play app store and do the updates required - report back here with what you've noticed, please!

 

[FarquarFindlans]

I have found some sites that explain this. Its called sudden death. I have contacted Samsung and they are collecting my phone for repair. Basically it is more the chip causing the problem and not the 4.1.2. There is an app on play store called eMMC check. It will tell you if your chip is known to fail.
If you google and do some reading on sudden death you will see it just gets worse. Sooner you return under warranty the better.
Hope this makes sense and helps someone.